Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew
The Road to Riches Weekend of 12th-13th August
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Ascot, Ayr, Haydock, Lingfield, Newmarket and Redcar
- Football, the start of the Premier League season including Chelsea v Liverpool
- Cricket, the Hundred continues.
- Rugby Union, 2023 Rugby World Cup Warm up matches
- Tennis ATP Winston-Salem Open.
- Golf the BMW Championship on the USPGA and the ISPS Handa World Invitational on the DP World Tour
York Ebor Festival
We have just added the York Ebor Festival - Full Package (23rd - 26th August 2023) to our homepage, the cost for all of Neil Channing’s write-ups is £125 here
2023 NFL Season
The package covering all 18 weeks of the regular season begins in early September and costs £99. An article describing what to expect from the package has been published, free to read here and a full ante-post preview will be available before the end of the month
Rugby World Cup
The 2023 Rugby World Cup in France begins in September. The package will cost just £50 and is available here with the tournament preview due to be live before the end of August
Free Tip
The Hundred: Welsh Fire v Southern Brave 6pm Saturday, Cardiff
The Welsh Fire were the worst performing of the Hundred franchises in the first two years of the competition, finishing 7th in 2021 and 8th and last in 2022 losing all their games. This off-season they appointed a new coaching team led by Mike Hussey and adopted a new approach to squad construction with data led analysis of players aimed at providing value for money in the player auction process designed to make the new franchise competitive. The early signs of this change in process are encouraging.
So far this season they beat the Manchester Originals in game one, narrowly lost to the Southern Brave in game 2 with a sensational Chris Jordan innings proving a match-winner for the side based in Southampton, tied at the Oval Invincibles in game 3 before beating Birmingham Phoenix comfortably on Thursday night to go level on points at the top of the table.
The most dramatic transformation within the side has come in the bowling line up, with two key new recruits the Pakistani pair left armer Shaheen Afridi, who takes opening powerplay overs and a set at the death, and Haris Rauf. They are supported short form “value” signings from domestic cricket David Willey, David Payne and Ben Green.
Shaheen Afridi is one of the best fast bowlers in world cricket, and in the short format captained Lahore Qalanders to PSL titles in 2022 and 2023. Extremely tall and quick, he has a brilliant swinging white ball yorker that has taken early wickets in each of Welsh Fire’s first three games of this competition. At the time of writing he is the joint top wicket taker in the competition with 6 in 4 matches and has only conceded 88 runs in 70 balls too
This is his (and Rauf’s) penultimate game in the competition before returning to action for the Pakistan national team. As yet, there has been no sign of any opposition batting line up facing him confidently.
10 points Shaheen Afridi Top Welsh fire bowler at 13/5 with Bet365, more firms to follow before Saturday evening
Blast Off
The T20 Blast and the Hundred could be disbanded and replaced with one short-form competition under proposals due to be discussed between the ECB and the counties this autumn.
There are growing concerns that the domestic schedule, which has two short-form competitions, does not work and that the Hundred will not be able to compete with other T20 franchise leagues particularly with the advent of Major League Cricket in America, which is due to expand next year and is played mid-summer thus clashing with both the Blast and the Hundred while offering more valuable contracts.
One proposal is to scrap the eight Hundred teams and the 100-ball format and replace it with a T20 league featuring the 18 counties but with a different ownership model. The eight Hundred teams are wholly owned by the ECB but a future model could include shared ownership between the ECB, the counties and private investors which would allow the counties to partner with a local business or another local sports team to raise capital investment and allow for increased salaries and therefore compete with other world franchise leagues for talent.
The Hundred has already started to feel the impact of the increase in T20 franchise leagues around the world, with many global stars either withdrawing from the competition or not entering themselves in the first place because they can receive bigger contracts in other tournaments. The top salary for men in the Hundred is £125,000, which is eclipsed by the amounts on offer not only in the Indian Premier League but also Major League Cricket, the ILT20 in the UAE and the SA20 in South Africa.
The Hundred’s present broadcast deal does not end until 2028, so any changes before then will need to get the agreement of all the counties and ensure a replacement broadcast deal.
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Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 1st July 2023. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £67,126 All bets have an ROI +3.05%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £71,176 a 1678% increase
The Road to Riches Weekend of 5th-6th August
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Ascot, Newcastle, Newmarket, Salisbury, Windsor and York
- Football, the start of the Football League season
- Cricket, the Hundred continues.
- Rugby Union, 2023 Rugby World Cup Warm up matches
- Tennis ATP National Bank Open.
- Golf the Fedex St Jude Championship on the USPGA.
2023 NFL Season
The package covering all 18 weeks of the regular season begins in early September and costs £99. An article describing what to expect from the package has been published, free to read here
2023 Rugby World Cup
The 2023 Rugby World Cup in France begins in September. The package will cost just £50 and is available here
Free Tip
Cricket The Hundred Birmingham Phoenix v Trent Rockets Saturday 6pm
The Hundred started this week and concludes on the 27th August with a final at Lords. Trent Rockets are the holders having won six of the 8 games on the way to the final last year. In a very short and new format where strategies are very much still in development what the Rockets had that other sides didn’t consistently have last year was a gun top order. Dawid Malan top scored across the league with 377 runs, while Alex Hales (259) and Colin Munro (206) chipped in too. Munro is back as one of the Rockets’ overseas picks, Hales returns and Joe Root will pitch in later on in the competition. Until then, one of the top uncapped English batsmen Sam Hain has joined the side. Lewis Gregory is a very shrewd captain and has already led Somerset to the T20 Blast title this season. The Hundred is designed for big hitters and the Rockets have the best top three in the competition.
Trent began the season 4/1 favourites to repeat their win of last year and best the Southern Brave on Tuesday night to get off to a winning start in a low-ish scoring game in which Hain top scored.
Birmingham Phoenix's chances in the competition could be dependent on the availability of England's Ashes representatives Chris Woakes, Moeen Ali and Ben Duckett although Will Smeed, Benny Howell, Liam Livingstone and Dan Mousley are talented young players capable of stepping up. The side has a lack of late order power but a canny looking bowling line up, and just missed out on the knockout stages last year finishing fourth having made the final in the first season.
Birmingham began their campaign on Thursday against the Northern Superchargers, the match was called off midway due to more rain in this non-summer of ours.
Looking at the Trent top order in the Trent Rockets top batsman market we have prevailing prices of: Hales and Malan 3/1 Kohler-Cadmore 15/4 Munro 9/2 Hain 11/2. The Trent Rockets top three should fire sooner rather than later, with a slight preference for the tournament specialist Malan
10 points Dawid Malan top Trent Rockets run scorer at 3/1 Bet365, more firms to follow
Summer Break
As F1 heads to its summer break with nearly a month until the next race the season is particularly one sided. Red Bull has 503 points in the Constructors Championship, Mercedes next with 247 Merc 247. Max Verstappen has won 8 races in a row, and ten overall this season and Red Bull have won 13 races in a row eclipsing the previous best set by McLaren during the Senna/Prost era 35 years ago. Lewis Hamilton meanwhile has not won for 34 races, since the latest regulation changes at the start of the 2022 season.
Recently Toto Wolff stated that the Red Bull is so dominant that it makes the rest of the field look like Formula Two cars.
Formula 1 is in a tough spot. They timed up the hype of Netflix's F1 show perfectly with a super- competitive season in 2021. Since then Red Bull has been winning every race by 20 seconds plus & many new fans in the US are already losing interest. The sport needs to be competitive to keep growing.
It’s important to note though that F1 has always been this way. McLaren (Senna/Prost), Ferrari (Schumacher), Mercedes and Red Bull, etc, have all dominated at one point usually by securing design and engineering advantages after regulation changes, even Jenson Button and Braun did so for the 2009 season when they were well clear of the field. At least with Mercedes from 2014-21 there were two cars going for the title with Hamilton and Rosberg.
With regulation changes F1 teams take risks on their concept & it comes down to who picked the right one. This time Red Bull got it spectacularly right and Mercedes had it right last time but missed on this one & trying to play catch-up.
Replace Red Bull with the dominant force of the time and the issue has always been the same. This time round, F1’s new owners were aware of the impending problem and tried and failed to implement new rules and limit spending to level the playing field. Such was the design advantage of the Red Bull that this did not matter and the next regulation change and the introduction of new teams such as Audi and Porsche is not due until 2026. So what do they try next?
F1 is really just an expensive engineering competition. But it's a challenge to enter new markets, attract fans, and grow revenue when everyone knows the end result.
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Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 1st July 2023. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £67,126 All bets have an ROI +3.05%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £71,176 a 1678% increase
The Road to Riches Weekend of 29th-30th July
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Ascot, Newcastle, Newmarket, Salisbury, Windsor and York
- Cricket, the fifth Ashes Test continues at The Oval
- Formula One, the Belgian Grand Prix
- Rugby Union, the final round of the Rugby Championship
- Tennis ATP Opens in Washington, Los Cabos and Kitzbuehel.
- Golf the Wyndham Championship on the USPGA.
Qatar Goodwood Festival
The full package for Neil Channing’s selections for the Qatar Goodwood Festival , 1st-5th August, is now available at a cost of £150 here
Free Tip
Rugby Championship South Africa v Argentina, Saturday 4.05pm Johannesburg
This being a Rugby World Cup Year the 2023 Rugby Championship has a curtailed schedule of three games per team, each team playing the other once rather than twice in other years and is a de facto set of warm up fixtures for France in the Autumn with South Africa especially experimenting in team selection.
For their first game of the tournament, South Africa sent ten of their best players on ahead to New Zealand ahead of the second game and the weakened team beat Australia 43-12 scoring six tries displaying their strength in depth. The first choice side then started poorly in Auckland the week after and were 17-0 down after 20 minutes. They recovered slightly to lose 35-20 but with a genuine feeling to many watching that the side wasn’t fully up to speed nor going through the full range of attacking plans saving those for the World Cup.
Argentina meanwhile hosted the All-Blacks in the first round and lost 41-12 before travelling to Australia a week later and winning an exciting game late on 34-31 despite being far from their best. Argentina’s last three wins are now all away, to New Zealand, England and now Australia, and are a much improved team.
South Africa have been showing signs of playing a more expansive game than is their recent style that led them to 2019 Rugby World Cup victory but are hamstrung in the short term by the absence of starting fly-half Handre Pollard to direct affairs. They have made nine changes for this game.
The Pumas are still missing some key players like Juan Cruz Mallia, Guido Petti and Marcos Kremer, who will all be a big boost once they return, and there are a few areas, like the scrum and defence, where Argentines can undoubtedly improve and South Africa will no doubt look to capitalise on this weekend
South Africa are a whopping 18-19 point favourites for this Johannesburg game. By the time this match is played I am expecting the All Blacks to have won the championship, beating Australia earlier in the day and for Argentina to put up a spirited fight and hopefully cover this big point spread
12 points Argentina +19 at 10/11 William Hill and +18 generally (Evens Bet365)
Opportunities
As I write, ahead of the fifth Ashes Test at the Oval later this week, the disappointment that two days of Manchester rain prevented England from most likely winning a game they dominated and going into the final match 2-2 remains. However despite being on the wrong side of weather variance, the truth is that had they not missed opportunities to win the first two Tests where their approach veered from the positive to the reckless they might now be at least 2-1 up rather than at best hoping to draw a series in which they cannot regain the Ashes.
Before this series, they had lost only twice and one of those times was by one run in Wellington yet the first part of this series was characterised by careless mistakes. The England management may insist that there is nothing to regret but with the fate of the Ashes now settled it is fair to examine how else they let good positions slip in the first two Tests.
To lose at Edgbaston after dictating play for most of five days was certainly careless. Ultimately a win was squandered in the final session when Australia were eight down with 55 still needed, but there were earlier opportunities to take an even firmer grip on the game. These included Stuart Broad overstepping when he bowled Usman Khawaja 112 runs into his eventual 141 (one of 23 no balls bowled by England, compared with Australia’s eight) and Jonny Bairstow failing to stump Cameron Green and dropping Alex Carey, errors that cost 78. Perhaps most unforgiveable was England’s batting on the fourth day when Root, Bairstow and Harry Brook all got into the forties only to give their wickets away. Australia’s target of 282 should have been more.
The 43-run margin of defeat at Lord’s flattered England, but they should never have got into the position of needing as many as 371 in the fourth innings. They might have dismissed Australia for fewer than 416 had Ollie Pope caught David Warner on 20 (he eventually made 66), but their most egregious play was Pope, Ben Duckett, Root and Brook falling to a short-ball barrage shortly after Lyon had gone down with a series-ending injury. With more composure they might have secured a first-innings lead rather than a deficit of 91
If England win at the Oval and secure a 2-2 draw they can reasonably argue that they have gone toe-to-toe with the world Test champions, and even had the better of them given their superiority in Manchester.
In reality, England are still learning how best to play Bazball. It is telling that they got better with each match of this series; they started too slowly with the ball and too erratically with their batting and catching. They are great value for money, but not yet consistently executing their aggressive plans, and because of that this summer represents a missed opportunity.
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Stattobets write ups, analysis and bets are available to monthly subscribers.
Results = points bet 34780 profit +1506.90 ROI +4.33% Full details here
Monthly subs are £50 a month and can be cancelled at any time. You can sign up here.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 1st July 2023. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £67,126 All bets have an ROI +3.05%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £71,176 a 1678% increase
The Road to Riches Weekend of 22nd-23rd July
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Doncaster, Haydock, Newbury, Newmarket and Ripon. Over the jumps at Cartmel and Market Rasen
- Cricket, the fifth Ashes Test next week at The Oval
- Formula One, the Hungarian Grand Prix
- Tennis ATP Opens in Atlanta, Croatia and Hamburg.
- Golf the 3m Open at TPC Twin Cities on the USPGA.
Qatar Goodwood Festival
The full package for Neil Channing’s selections for the Qatar Goodwood Festival , 1st-5th August, is now available at a cost of £150 here
Free Tip
Hungarian Grand Prix, Sunday 2pm
Ten races into the 2023 season with Red Bull dominating having won all ten races so far and Verstappen nailed on for his third world championship, already 99 points ahead the intrigue on a race by race basis surrounds who will be next best and hitting the podium spots.
In the constructors Championship Mercedes are second with 203 points, Aston Martin 3rd with 181 ahead of Ferrari and McLaren. Mercedes position owes to consistent points scoring from both drivers without ever threatening wins, Aston Martin solely rely on Alonso and Ferrari are inconsistent with poor strategy a problem.
In the last two races McLaren have become a contender for high finishes with in-season upgrades based on the Red Bull design template a huge success to date. Lando Norris finishes 4th in Austria then runner up at Silverstone, Piastri finished fourth in the same race. Meanwhile Aston Martin have fallen back into the pack. Alonso marked the first six races with five podium finishes and has six podiums in ten races overall but a P7 in Barcelona followed by a P5 in Austria and another seventh placed finish at Silverstone is evidence of other teams catching them up and the nature of the circuits. Spielberg and Silverstone are both fast sweeping circuits whereas the Aston Martin tends to perform better on circuits with a greater number of slower corners where there was a run of these races earlier in the season (Melbourne, Baku, Miami, Monaco in a row where Alonso finished 3rd, 4th, 3rd, 2nd)
This weekend the calendar takes the teams to the Hungaroring, and back to the type of circuit that will suit Aston Martin more, and where Norris has expressed doubts about McLaren. This is what he said after Silverstone:
"We do have a poor car -- and I say poor, I would say pretty terrible in the slow-speed corners, extremely difficult to drive," Norris said after the Silverstone race. I feel if we're getting excited and I accept that, but we're going to go to a couple of tracks coming up where I'm sure people are going to be saying 'what have you done now? Like, how has it got so bad all of a sudden?'
Red-Bull apart, with performance across the rest of the grid so track specific, that provides opportunities away from the winner market race by race. With the winner market these days only paying two places, the Podium market is the place to look.
12 points Fernando Alonso to podium in the Hungarian Grand Prix at 5/4 with Coral/Ladbrokes, 6/5 William Hill, SkyBet
Group of Death
Leicester and Sale have landed a brutal pool draw in next season’s Champions Cup. The English clubs, who cannot play each other in the group stage, face games against the holders, La Rochelle, the runners-up, Leinster, the South African heavyweights Stormers and Stade Français. They will play two matches at home and two away in December and January. European champions Stade Rochelais will kick off their title defence with a blockbuster clash against Leinster in a repeat of last season’s final. The French giants clinched back-to-back titles by beating Leinster in Dublin in June.
Saracens, the Premiership champions, and Bristol, who replaced London Irish after the Exiles went into administration, will tackle Bordeaux-Bègles, Bulls, Lyon and Connacht in Pool 1.
Bath, Champions Cup qualifiers after a dramatic last day of the Premiership season, are in Pool 2 alongside Harlequins. They will take on the newly crowned French champions, Toulouse, plus Racing 92, Ulster and the solitary Welsh representatives, Cardiff.
The past tournament winners Exeter and Northampton are in Pool 3, where they will face fixtures against the United Rugby Championship title holders, Munster, plus Glasgow, Bayonne and Toulon.
With the tournament format restored to the version played pre-COVID, the top four in each group progress to last 16. The Champions Cup final takes place at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on 25th May.
StattoBets Dave Monthly Subscription - Soccer - Tennis - Darts
Stattobets write ups, analysis and bets are available to monthly subscribers.
Results = points bet 34780 profit +1506.90 ROI +4.33% Full details here
Monthly subs are £50 a month and can be cancelled at any time. You can sign up here.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 1st July 2023. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £67,126 All bets have an ROI +3.05%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £71,176 a 1678% increase
The Road to Riches Weekend of 15th-16th July
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Ascot, Chester, Hamilton, Newmarket, Salisbury and York
- Cricket, the fourth Ashes Test next week at Old Trafford and the T20 Blast Finals day
- Rugby Union, the Rugby Championship continues, including New Zealand v South Africa this weekend.
- Tennis Wimbledon concludes.
- Golf the Open Championship next week at Royal Liverpool.
Qatar Goodwood Festival
The full package for Neil Channing’s selections for the Qatar Goodwood Festival , 1st-5th August, is now available at a cost of £150 here
Free Tip
Vitality T20 Blast Finals day, Edgbaston Saturday, starting at 11am
This year’s T20 Blast finals day sees all four teams derive from the South group with the semi-final draw as follows:
11am Hampshire v Essex
2.30pm Somerset v Surrey
With the final to be played at 6.45pm. The weather forecast is poor, so they may need the Sunday reserve day and the weather introduces more variance to an already unpredictable format.
Surrey and Essex won away Quarter-finals as underdogs, at Lancashire and Birmingham respectively whilst Somerset and Hampshire confirmed favouritism at home.
Pre-tournament odds for this weekend are as follows:
9/4 Surrey
11/4 Hampshire and Somerset
4/1 Essex
Before I looked at the prices I expected Somerset to be favourites as the most impressive team in the group stages with 12 wins from 14 games. Whilst one of their two losses came at home to Surrey, they are still a formidable outfit with the batting led by young guns Banton, Smeed and Kohler Cadmore whilst in the bowling attack Ben Green and New Zealand quick Matt Henry combined for 51 wickets, now supported by canny spinner Ish Sodhi. They have all bases covered.
Their first challenge is that Surrey are not just a big name team but a big game team. Their performance to win at Old Trafford in the Quarter-Finals, defending 188 with some comfort was brilliant, defeating hosts who had not lost at home in the competition for three years. Players like Sam Curran, Jordan and Narine raised their game and the batting line up now has Jason Roy back to provide yet more firepower. Yet seeing them favourites despite having to play Somerset in the second semi is based in part on name recognition as much as the consistency of performance.
I would expect Hampshire to win the other semi-final, with Essex marginally the weakest of the four teams to have made it through having finished fourth in the South Group and crept into the knockout stages late on.
The value at the prices to win on Saturday is Somerset.
12 points Somerset to win the T20 Blast at 11/4 with BetVictor, 5/2 generslly
Closed Shop
A new biennial international rugby tournament featuring the Six Nations and SANZAAR teams is set to start in 2026, with games played each July and November. The tournament will be ring-fenced until 2023 with World Rugby setting up a Tier 2 competition for promotion and relegation.
The elite tournament will include the ten teams from the Six Nations and the Rugby Championship plus and additional two Invitation sides, probably Japan and Fiji.
The announcement of the new “World League” which will take place in alternating years between Lions tours and the World Cup has been met with mixed reviews primarily because of the adverse impact on Tier 2 teams, excluded from the competition and thus likely to play even fewer teams from the top tier in each World Cup cycle, hindering their development and the growth of the game beyond the current powerhouses.
If Fiji are set to be the other team besides Japan that is a big hit to teams such as Samoa and Tonga. Meanwhile the strongest European side outside the Six Nations, Georgia, have little to look forward to apart from winning the Rugby Europe International Championship, effectively the Six Nations 2, each year against teams they are far superior to.
However, for all the criticism the new league is primarily a survival tactic with rugby’s finances ever more precarious. Considering the struggles Wales are currently facing, and those affecting England’s sub-international game from the top down and the decline of South Africa’s domestic scene, the attempt to create a new and secure stream of revenue from broadcasters seems a common sense measure.
Despite all of the global viewpoints addressed above, these unions have no obligation to any party which does not make financial sense. In the current economic climate, the times are tough. This competition is undoubtedly a product of that reality.
StattoBets Dave Monthly Subscription - Soccer - Tennis - Darts
Stattobets write ups, analysis and bets are available to monthly subscribers.
Results = points bet 34780 profit +1506.90 ROI +4.33% Full details here
Monthly subs are £50 a month and can be cancelled at any time. You can sign up here.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 1st July 2023. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £67,126 All bets have an ROI +3.05%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £71,176 a 1678% increase
